Bikram Yoga: Turn up the heat and reduce the tension

Maryjane O'Connor had her doubts when she took her first Bikram Yoga class.

Looking around at students going through postures in 105-degree heat, she thought, “These people are out of their minds.”

Four-and-a-half-years of practice later, O'Connor is no longer a skeptic. “This thing has changed my life,” she said after a recent workout at Bikram Yoga Auburn.

The 60-year-old massage therapist from Worcester credits the discipline with improving her flexibility, balance, heart rate and stress level. Perhaps most of all, she said, the chronic back pain she suffered has all but disappeared, enabling her to get off pain medication.

Bikram Yoga involves 26 postures and two breathing exercises done in heat that allows for a deeper stretch in the muscles. The technique was developed by Bikram Choudhury, who founded the Yoga College of India in Beverly Hills, where instructors are certified.

Sam Goldman, 43, is one of those instructors. He owns Bikram Yoga studios in Auburn and Westboro, and has practiced the discipline for 11 years.

“I only came to yoga for one reason,” he said, “weight loss.”

He lost 67 pounds, but the former runner also found that yoga alleviated a knee injury and cured his road rage. He contends that Bikram Yoga is good for what ails you.

“I've got runners who can run again, dancers who can dance again and lovers who can love again,” he said before teaching a recent class in Auburn.

People who think yoga is no-sweat exercise haven't tried Bikram Yoga. O'Connor finds the classes more challenging than a triathlon she completed. And Matt Blanchard, a 23-year-old mechanical engineer from Worcester who also hikes and rides a mountain bike, described the workout this way: “It's the great leveler.”

Classes last 90 minutes, and during one recent session Goldman led students through the postures, which are always done in the same order. He talked his charges through the positions, encouraging them, tweaking their poses and praising their progress. Sometimes he spoke so quickly he almost sounded like an auctioneer. During rests, as students lay on their backs in the Dead Body Pose, he told stories of yoga's healing power and humorous anecdotes involving characters as diverse as Richard Nixon and Cookie Monster.

Josh Greenberg, a 61-year-old cardiologist at St. Vincent Hospital, has been practicing Bikram Yoga for more than nine years.

“It's not just good for your body, it's good for your mind,” he said, adding that yoga has helped him cultivate patience and awareness.

Kim Edward, 25, of Worcester sometimes works 10-hour days at her job at the African Community Education Program in the city, so she's up at 5:15 for the 6 a.m. class in Auburn.

While Bikram Yoga is intense — “It works every part of you,” she said — the workout gives her stamina. A year after beginning the practice, she has as much energy at the end of her day as at the beginning.